Developments in the second half of 2017 indicate that the slowdown in Mozambique's economic performance may be taking hold, shifting this once fast-growing economy to a more modest pace of growth.
... See More + GDP growth is expected to dip to 3.1 percent in 2017, despite substantial increases in coal and aluminum exports. Whilst these exports boomed, small and medium enterprises (SMEs)have fallen back even further, especially in the manufacturing sector, which contracted for this first time since 1994. Current trends make it clear that Mozambique needs to redouble its efforts to support small and medium enterprises, and to look beyond the extractive sector for more balanced growth. The drift towards a natural resource extraction based economy with low employment generation makes the case for Mozambique to leverage off its growing and youthful population provides for future growth.
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Developments in the second half of 2017 indicate that the slowdown in Mozambique's economic performance may be taking hold, shifting this once fast-growing economy to a more modest pace of growth.
... See More + GDP growth is expected to dip to 3.1 percent in 2017, despite substantial increases in coal and aluminum exports. Whilst these exports boomed, small and medium enterprises (SMEs)have fallen back even further, especially in the manufacturing sector, which contracted for this first time since 1994. Current trends make it clear that Mozambique needs to redouble its efforts to support small and medium enterprises, and to look beyond the extractive sector for more balanced growth. The drift towards a natural resource extraction based economy with low employment generation makes the case for Mozambique to leverage off its growing and youthful population provides for future growth.
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This paper seeks to understand what drove the trends in learning outcomes in Argentina between 2000 and 2012, using data from four rounds of the Program for International Student Assessment.
... See More + A year-specific education production function is estimated and its results used to decompose the changes in learning outcomes into changes in inputs, parameters, and residuals via microsimulations. Estimates of the production function show the importance of socioeconomic status, gender, school autonomy, and teacher qualifications to determine learning outcomes. Despite an important increase in the level of resources invested in public education, learning outcomes in public schools decreased vis-à-vis private schools. According to the results presented here, the increase in the number of teachers in the system, pushing the pupil-teacher ratio in Argentina to 11, had no effect on learning outcomes. The microsimulation further confirms that changes in the system’s ability to transform inputs into outcomes accounted for most of the changes in test scores. Overall, the study shows the ineffectiveness of input-based education policies to improve learning outcomes in Argentina.
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The process of demographic transition through which Argentina is passing is a window of both opportunities and challenges in economic and social terms.
... See More + Argentina is still a young country in which the working-age population represents the largest proportion of its total population. Currently, the country just began a 30-year period with the most advantageous age structure of its population, which could favor greater economic growth. This situation, known as the 'demographic window of opportunity,' will last until the beginning of the 2040s. The dynamics of the fertility and mortality rates signify a gradual ageing of the population, with implications for various dimensions of the economy, the social protection system, public policies, and society in general. This book studies the opportunities and challenges that the demographic transition poses for the Argentine economy, its most important social sectors like the healthcare, education, and social protection systems, and the potential fiscal trade-offs that must be dealt with. The study shows that even though Argentina is moving through its demographic transition, it just recently began to enjoy the window of opportunity and this constitutes a great opportunity to achieve an accumulation of capital and future economic growth. Once the window of opportunity has passed, population ageing will have a significant impact on the level of expenditure, especially spending in the social protection system. This signifies a challenge from a fiscal policy point of view, because if long-term reforms are not undertaken to mediate these effects, the demographic transition will put pressure on the reallocation of fiscal resources among social sectors. Finally, population ageing poses concerns related to sustaining the rate of economic growth with a smaller working-age population. Taking advantage of the current window of opportunities, increasing savings that will finance the accumulation of capital, and increasing future labor force productivity in this way is a challenge for the Argentine economy.
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This study aims to provide an overview of past and future population dynamics, analyzing their impact on social and economic development of Argentina.
... See More + It tries to identify the opportunities and challenges associated with population aging, highlighting those issues and sectors that need a change or adaptation policy. The aim of the study is not to provide prescriptions or detailed instructions on how to reform each particular sector, but to encourage an analytical discussion of possible policy options to harness the demographic opportunities and ensure sustainability in the medium and long term. Finally, the study makes comparisons with other countries who have experienced or are currently in the midst of their demographic transition, and provides examples of their experiences in dealing with issues like politics. However, solutions and initiatives should be developed within the Argentinian society, given the particular history, culture, resources and values of the country. The book has twelve chapters that discuss and analyze the potential economic impact of the demographic transition in Argentina. The first chapter summarizes the findings in the book. Chapter 2 presents population projections for Argentina through 2100. Chapter 3 considers the accounts of nations transfers and consumption profile and earnings by age. Chapter 4 presents a basic model for projections of social expenditure on education, health and pensions from 2010 to 2100. Chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8 analyze the potential impact of the transition on the pension system, health, long term care and education, respectively, subject to different policy options. Chapter 9 analyzes the fiscal impact of the demographic transition and the trade-offs between social sectors. Chapter 10 and 11 study the dynamics of the labor market in the context of aging and the potential impact on the overall productivity of the workforce. This is conditioned on various public policy tools. Finally, Chapter 12 examines the Argentine macroeconomic performance vis a vis different international experiences, and the challenges and opportunities created by the demographic transition.
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